Southern Cal ACLU Director Stepping Down

The lady says she's tired and after
thirty-eight years of fighting legal
battles who wouldn't be? We commend
and salute Ramona Ripston for her long
and dedicated years with the ACLU!




Ramona Ripston has never been one to back away from a fight.

As the driving force behind the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California for 38 years, she's battled police over the treatment of prisoners and the homeless. She's marched against segregation and sued for better inner-city schools. She's taken authorities to court for withholding public housing and medical care from those she believes need them most.

But with the recession taking a deep bite out of government budgets and philanthropy, Ripston has wearied of the setbacks dealt the causes she holds dear. On Tuesday, she will announce her plans to retire next year and hand off the unfinished battles to a younger successor.

"I'm very tired," the once-indefatigable liberal icon conceded in an interview, the floral bouquets from her recent 83rd birthday beginning to droop as well.

"I was very affected by the layoffs," Ripston said of the five staffers let go last year from among the 60 she had hired as executive director. "I've fired people for not doing a satisfactory job, but when you're laying off people for money reasons -- it just took a lot out of me."

Ripston said she had also been moved to step down in hopes of rejuvenating the graying landscape of liberal activism in Los Angeles, a force now driven by those who honed their social consciousness in the 1960s. The ACLU needs to attract more young talent, she said, to infuse its causes with new ideas and vigor.

Although she counts as her legacy key victories in cases alleging police abuse and getting federal court injunctions against enforcing Proposition 187, which would have denied public benefits to "suspected" illegal immigrants, Ripston laments what she sees as a recent trend of "going backwards."

California public schools were the envy of the nation when Ripston arrived in 1972, she said. "Now we're somewhere in the 40s," she said of the state's ranking.

President Obama's campaign promise to provide affordable healthcare for all citizens is one of a number of dashed expectations, she said.

"While I personally was a big Obama supporter, I have to say I've been disappointed," Ripston said. "I think he could have pushed harder on his health plan."

The ACLU of Southern California will launch a nationwide search for Ripston's successor, said Gordon Smith, communications director. Ripston will stay on as executive director until Feb. 15, 2011, he said, and remain involved with the organization in a part-time emeritus role.





This Article Continues Here





Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Internet Access For Inmates?

Here's a new twist, seems prisoners in
the U.K.have been using Facebook to
their victims. This is unusual since
in this country inmates have no access
to the internet. Check out the story
below and then add your two cents.




The criminals are behind bars but their victims are still feeling their reach — through the Internet.

The British government said Thursday that Facebook had removed the profiles of 30 U.K. inmates at its request after several incidents in which prisoners reportedly used the social networking site to organize crime or taunt others.

The announcement made some Internet users worry about government interference online, but many crime victims said even more should be done.

"When someone is convicted of a crime he loses his civil liberty though sentencing," said Gary Trowsdale of Families United, a group founded by relatives of young murder victims. "We say he should use his cyber-liberty as well."

Families United met earlier this week with Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who said the government would act "to tackle those cases where offenders seek to taunt or harass victims and their families" through Web sites.





This Article Continues Here





Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Will The President Have To Step In?

President Obamas aunt is fighting
deportation back to Kenya. The White
House says it is waiting for the legal
process to play itself out. Does this
mean that Obama may step in if a court
ruling is not favorable? Whats your
take on this issue?





An immigration hearing that could lead to the deportation of Barack Obama’s aunt ended without a resolution today.

Zeituni Onyango, 57, testified for nearly three hours at the closed-door hearing and did not speak as she left, walking with a cane. She entered the courtroom in a wheelchair this morning.

Ms. Onyango’s lawyer, Margaret Wong, would not reveal what Ms. Onyango said in her testimony, but said it went “well.”

“She was very honest. She was very to the point,” Ms. Wong told reporters outside the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in Boston.

Ms. Wong said Ms. Onyango is “doing very well” and “really wants to stay in America.”

Lawyers have 30 days to submit written closing briefs. Judge Leonard I. Shapiro scheduled a May 25 hearing if no decision is reached.

Earlier post:

BOSTON – President Obama’s aunt is fighting a deportation order today, arguing she should be granted asylum for medical and other reasons.

Ms. Onyango, arrived at the closed hearing in a Boston federal building in a wheelchair this morning, with a cane draped over her lap. Ms. Onyango testified for more than two hours in front of Judge Leonard I. Shapiro.

Her attorney, Margaret Wong, said that two doctors would testify about Ms. Onyango’s health. Ms. Onyango has had back problems and said in an interview with The Associated Press in November that she was paralyzed for three months because of Guillian-Barre Syndrome, an autoimmune disorder.





This Article Continues Here





Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Woolsworth Lunch Counter Now A Museum

The building which housed the F.W. Woolsworth Co. in
Greensboro South Carolina and was the site of one of the
first civil rights demonstration some fifty years ago
has now been turned into a museum and will be dedicated
in a ceremony today. Check out the story below and feel
free to comment on this historical event.





The sign still says “F. W. Woolworth Co.” in bright gold letters running across the building on South Elm Street, just as it did 50 years ago. And within that two-story structure, the same stainless steel dumbwaiters and commercial appliances line the mirrored walls. The lunch counter, which includes a bowling-alley-long tabletop that must dwarf any currently in use, is largely intact; the original chrome and vinyl chairs are still mounted in the floor. This site is an authentic, half-century-old relic, a remnant of the mundane, the insignificant, the quaint.

But one of the achievements of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, which is opening Monday in that former Woolworth building, is that you begin to understand how such a place became a pivot in the greatest political movement of the 20th century.

In the museum’s 30,000 square feet of exhibition space, the mundane luncheonette reminds us that a cataclysmic social transformation took place over the right to be ordinary. For that was what was at stake — not subtle and arcane matters of law or obscure practices that challenged eccentric codes of behavior, but the basic acts of daily life: eating, drinking, sleeping, working, playing. It was here, at this luncheonette counter, that four 17-year-old freshmen at the all-black Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina — Joseph A. McNeil, Franklin E. McCain, David L. Richmond and Ezell A. Blair Jr. — arrived on Feb. 1, 1960, sat down and ordered some food.

And when they were refused — refused because they were black, because much of Greensboro was racially segregated, and because Woolworth headquarters had decreed that the company policy was “to abide by local custom” — the four students continued to sit in mute protest.

They returned the next day and the next. Within a week 1,000 protesters and counterprotesters packed the store. By the end of March “sit-ins” had spread to 55 cities in 13 states. By mid-April the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had been established to expand student involvement. And by the end of July, when the Greensboro Woolworth’s counter was finally desegregated, this form of nonviolent protest had become one of the central strategies of the American civil rights movement.





This Article Continues Here





Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/